Little known facts about Ronnie O’Sullivan
Ronnie O’Sullivan participates in snooker show The Eleven 30 Series in 2017 | Image: GEORGID / Shutterstock.com
He’s the world’s greatest snooker player, Ronnie ‘the Rocket’ O’Sullivan as he’s known to millions, has been wowing fans and crushing the opposition for over thirty years. But there’s so much more to O’Sullivan than snooker.
Due to criticisms directed at his sport, he’s often portrayed by the media as a curmudgeonly figure who doesn’t play by the rules. But, there's no denying his extraordinary talent. So let’s celebrate that with a few lesser-known facts about Ronnie the Rocket.
He’s a 147-break, record breaker
In case you didn’t know, a 147 break is the most points you can score from a break, briefly and very basically, that’s the moment the red balls are displaced by the white cue ball; from then on, every time a red (worth one) is potted, the black (worth seven) has to follow. When all the reds are down the remaining balls, yellow (two), green (three), brown (four), blue (five) pink (six) and finally the black, must be potted in that order to achieve a 147.
O’Sullivan did his first 147 when he was 15 and has 15 147’s under his belt. Both have earned him a place in the Guinness Book of Records, and that's just two of many more.
He’s a Crime Novelist
Ronnie has co-authored three books with Emlyn Rees. Framed (2016), Double Kiss (2017), and The Break (2018) is a series of crime novels that have been largely well-received, especially the latter. He’s been involved with several non-fiction titles as well, including his autobiography, ‘Ronnie’, but ‘Running: The Autobiography is entirely his.
He is friends with, and paints, with Damien Hirst
It would seem that, in addition to writing, O’Sullivan likes to dabble with the paint tins. And why do this alone when you can paint with the so-called ‘enfant terrible’ of British Art, Damien Hirst? Speaking of painting with Hirst, O’Sullivan said, 'I love painting with him. It’s very therapeutic. What do we paint? Anything and everything'. The two go back years, Hirst even painted Ronnie in 1997. Ronnie was playing snooker at the Groucho Club, Soho, with Hirst the night the artist sold off his entire exhibition, ‘Beautiful Inside My Head Forever', for £111 million at Sotheby’s in 2008.
He’s a TV star
And it’s called ‘The Ronnie O’Sullivan Show’, of course, and, guess what it’s all about? In it, Ronnie muses on the state of the game, interviews other snooker players and even offers a few playing tips. He also co-presented a show on Sky HISTORY with sports pundit Matt Smith. ‘Ronnie O'Sullivan's American Hustle’ saw the pair travel across the US to check out the pool hustling scene. Relatively unknown out there, Ronnie attempted to take down a few local heroes, but, spoiler alert, it did not always work out like that!
He’s turned his hand to cooking.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s any good at it. He’s not bad at all, he’s written recipes that have been published in The Times and his cookery book ‘Top of Your Game’, was published in 2019 to critical acclaim. But there’s something unique about Ronnie’s style of cooking too.
He only cooks with one hand! This came to light on ITV’s ‘This Morning’ when he made a half-decent decent chicken curry. Now, if Ronnie learns to use the other one as well, he may get good enough to jack in the day job.
